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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2018, 2022 by Tiffany Brooks
Cover and internal design © 2022 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Casey Moses
Cover image © Luke Gram/Stocksy
Internal design by Ashley Holstrom/Sourcebooks
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including
information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—
without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious
or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are
trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their
respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any
product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Originally published as Reality Gold in 2018 in the United
States of America by Dunemere Books.
Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of
Congress.
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
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35
36
37
About the Author
Back Cover
Dedicated to my father, who introduced me to Tolkien, but,
even more importantly, who paid all my overdue library fines
without complaint;
to my mother, who proudly framed my first poem and hung it
inside our front door for all the world to see as if it were a
masterpiece (it was not);
and to James, who has supported and encouraged me, mostly
by repeating over and over, with varying degrees of love and
exasperation, “Just finish it.”
Reality Gold Team Rosters
Day One
I’ve got my own version of Murphy’s Law, and it goes like
this: if there’s something that will make a bad situation even
worse, I’ll do it. My ex-friends called it Riley’s Law, and it’s
the best explanation for why I was now crammed shoulder to
shoulder with nineteen other teens on one of those ominous-
looking military-style helicopters that always show up in
disaster movies when the worst stuff is about to go down.
Why—why—had I thought doing a reality show was the
answer to all my problems? Would I ever learn to leave things
alone?
My back bounced against the cold metal wall. All the
players were wiggling and vibrating against one another like a
batch of lottery balls about to be released. I scanned the
opposite row of my new rivals’ faces, yet not a single other
person looked scared, sick, or even mildly nervous.
Keep it together, Riley.
Somehow, a stupid mistake from eight months ago had
snowballed into this: me, hurtling toward a deserted island off
the coast of Brazil, about to compete in a nationally televised
reality show. Back in October, which felt like a lifetime ago,
my friend Izzy and I did something dumb. I got suspended.
Izzy got expelled. My sentence was lighter because my role
was trivial, but my progressive San Francisco classmates who
were always on alert for signs of inequity decided the school
had gotten it wrong and our misdeeds were identical. The only
reason I was still around, they argued, was because my parents
were big donors to our school, and Izzy had been ousted
because she was a scholarship kid. There was a petition
submitted to the headmaster, demanding my expulsion. The
school declined, and the only wreckage would have been my
own hurt feelings if I’d left everything alone.
But because of Riley’s Law, I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Instead, I decided I had to defend myself in an op-ed on the
school website. The essay was well-written and impeccably
argued. No one noticed any of that though, because within
hours, the San Francisco Chronicle had picked the article up
and decimated it. Decimated me. There’s a whole
gentrification thing going on in the city right now, and my
words were twisted and held up as proof of the spoiled
mentality of the Bay Area’s one percent. Their warped
interpretation: WEALTHY PRIVATE SCHOOL STUDENT
DEMANDS SPECIAL TREATMENT.
That was definitely not what I’d said, but it didn’t stop
people in all corners of the internet from flooding my
Facebook page and raiding my Instagram, suggesting I go kill
myself, but before I did, I should get surgery to move my eyes
closer together, start a diet to fix my fat face, and grow some
boobs.
It was bad enough when it felt like my friends and
classmates hated me, but suddenly the whole world was
screaming about how worthless I was.
Some creative snake even managed to download some
photos of me before I made everything private. He slapped
some Marie Antoinette–style comments on them, and they
went viral. Birthed by the internet and tended to by trolls, this
warped version of myself showed up everywhere. The meme
of the girl in the red velvet party dress, holding her white-
gloved hands out in disgust, under the caption You bought that
on sale? I can’t even! That was me when I was ten, taken at
my middle school’s annual holiday dance. It had been a really
fun night; the dress was a gift, and when I twirled, the skirt
puffed up like a bell. I felt like a princess. That sour
expression had probably only flashed across my face for a
second or two, and it was nothing more than an exaggerated
reaction to the DJ playing “Oops!… I Did It Again,” which I
secretly loved.
Now when I hear that song or think of that night, the shame
hits me all over again.
The helicopter suddenly banked right, hitting a rough patch
of air. Across from me, two girls wearing tiny shorts and with
hair longer than their crop tops clutched each other and
screamed. The one with the deep red hair looked familiar, but I
couldn’t think of why, which was bugging me because I
usually remembered things like that.
They were so casually entwined, as if they were best friends
already. Once, that might have been me. If I’d been doing this
show a year ago, I probably would have been right there next
to them, commiserating over the awkwardness of it all, asking
the girl with the red hair where she was from and
complimenting the blond girl’s gold clover necklace.
But now my instinct was to hold back. Becoming the butt of
a national joke left me unsure of whom I could trust. After the
bad publicity prompted the headmaster to start making noise
about how it “might be better for everyone” if I enrolled
somewhere else, I withdrew and hid in my room while being
homeschooled for the remainder of the year. At least that’s
what my mother called the rotation of counselors and tutors
who cycled through our house. My father didn’t call it
anything. By then, he had basically washed his hands of me.
And now September was coming in three short months,
bringing with it a new school for my senior year and a chance
for a fresh start. I wanted my future classmates to know
something about me besides that garbage online, but
countering a rumor is nearly impossible. As my tutor liked to
say: A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth
can get its boots on. But then I heard about this show. It was
the perfect solution. Me, on television every week. The real
me, looking friendly and nice and normal and nothing at all
like an evil narcissist who bathes in champagne and the tears
of poor people.
For that tactic to succeed though, I had to put myself out
there. Be friendly. The girl sitting on my left, who’d
introduced herself as Taylor, seemed like an easy person to
start with; she’d been chattering away nonstop with nearly
everyone else already. But when I leaned toward her to say
something, we hit more turbulence, and my forehead smacked
squarely into hers.
“Hey!” She pulled back, pressing her fingers into the bridge
of her nose. The exclamation was hardly fair. I obviously
hadn’t done it on purpose.
Nevertheless, I apologized. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly,
internally cursing myself for the false start. Doing this show
badly would be worse than not doing it at all.
“Hang in there!” Deb, the producer, shouted. She was tiny,
but she had a big presence with her loud voice and a wild flash
of dark, curly hair. “The wind currents always get
unpredictable near the island, but it won’t be too much longer
in the air. Are you ready?”
There were a lot of nods, some more enthusiastic than
others.
“Are you guys dead or what? A little spirit, please. I’ll ask
again: Are you ready?”
This time, there were shouts and cheers. A guy in bright red
Bermuda shorts near the back door put his fingers in his mouth
to whistle, although the wind rush inside the helicopter was so
loud I couldn’t hear it from that far away. He had short dirty-
blond hair, looked very preppy, was named Parker or Porter—
one of those first name/last name kind of names. Cute. We’d
met at the airport when we’d both arrived at the door at the
same time and had a couple of rounds of polite but awkward
“You first,” “No, you.” Too bad I’d watched him later trying to
catch the eyes of the pair of new best friends huddled across
from me.
“Much better,” Deb said. “Now listen up, because I’ve got a
surprise.”
Oh no. I’d binge-watched enough reality shows in the last
few months to know that last-minute bombshells never
brought good news. Even more worrisome was how the film
crew had suddenly jumped into action, swinging cameras onto
their shoulders and scattering among the players to take up
their filming positions.
One of them knelt in front of me, so close I could see dark
patches of stubble along his cheeks and a few loose threads
unraveling from the neck of his black T-shirt. If I could see
him in so much detail, his lens must be capturing my every
pore.
I swallowed nervously. I had definitely underestimated how
unnerving it was to feel this level of scrutiny again.
For a second, the aperture in the center of the lens opened
up, and a reflection of my face flashed in the glass. I didn’t see
any features, just fear.
Breathe, Riley.
There’s a game I play when my anxiety starts to kick in.
Since it was a suggestion from my therapist, I resisted at first,
but now I use the question game all the time. It takes up excess
mental energy and forces me to be in the moment. It also feels
way more productive than plain old deep breathing. Here it is:
describe something in opposing ways, and then figure out
which description is correct.
My participation in this show: ballsy attempt to rehab my
reputation, or a ginormous mistake that would lead to round
two as the internet’s favorite punching bag?
Me: misunderstood girl, or spoiled internet brat?
I’d find out soon enough.
2
— Varsova on valloitettu!
Kmicicin oli kuljettava tuon kolmion läpi, sillä hänellä oli kiire, ja
siitä oli tie lyhin. Hän huomasi kohta joutuneensa verkkoon, mutta ei
pelästynyt, koska oli tottunut tämmöiseen sodankäyntiin. Hän arveli,
että verkko oli pingoitettu liian laajalle alalle ja että tarpeen tullen voi
pujahtaa sen silmukoista läpi. Ja mikä oli vielä ihmeellisempää:
vaikka häntä yhtä mittaa koetettiin pyydystää, niin hän ei vain
livahtanut pyydystäjien käsistä, vaan itsekin ahdisteli heitä. Ensin
hän meni Bugin yli Serockin luona, kulki joen rantaa Wyszkowiin ja
tuhosi Brariszczykin luona häntä kiinni ottamaan lähetetyn
kolmensadan miehen vahvuisen ratsujoukon, josta ruhtinas
Boguslaw kirjeessään mainitsi, niin perinpohjin, että siitä ei jäänyt
jäljelle ketään, joka olisi vienyt tiedon tappiosta päälliköille. Itse
Douglas kävi hänen kimppuunsa Dlugosiodlen luona, mutta hän löi
ruotsalaisen ratsujoukon pakoon ja pysytteli sen läheisyydessä ja
meni lopulta ruotsalaisten nähden uiden Narvan yli. Douglas jäi joen
rannalle odottamaan proomuja, mutta ennenkuin ne saapuivat, tuli
Kmicic yön pimeydessä taas joen yli takaisin ja sai hyökkäämällä
ruotsalaisten etuvartioita vastaan aikaan pelästystä ja sekamelskaa
koko Douglasin divisioonassa.
Boguslaw oli sitä mieltä, että kumpikin nimitys oli paikallaan, mutta
hänen täytyi myöntää, että tuo johtaja myös oli kuuluisa soturi.
Ylpeänä hän kertoi kaataneensa kahdesti omin käsin maahan tuon
ritarin.
Hän jakoi joukkonsa kolmeen osastoon, joista yhtä johti hän itse,
toista Akbah-Ulan ja kolmatta Soroka, ja muutamassa päivässä hän
teki lopun melkein koko ruotsalaisjoukosta. Se oli yhtämittaista
ihmismetsästystä metsissä ja viidakoissa, jotka kaikuivat huudoista,
rytinästä, laukauksista ja vaikertelusta.